The Wandering Jew — Complete eBook

Dagobert and Agricola finished their preparations
in silence. They were both very pale, and solemnly
grave. They felt all the danger of so desperate
an enterprise.

The clock at Saint-Mery’s struck ten. The
sound of the bell was faint, and almost drowned by
the lashing of the wind and rain, which had not ceased
for a moment.

“Ten o’clock!” said Dagobert, with
a start. “There is not a minute to lose.
Take the sack, Agricola.”

“Yes, father.”

As he went to fetch the sack, Agricola approached
Mother Bunch, who was hardly able to sustain herself,
and said to her in a rapid whisper: “If
we are not here to-morrow, take care of my mother.
Go to M. Hardy, who will perhaps have returned from
his journey. Courage, my sister! embrace me.
I leave poor mother to you.” The smith,
deeply affected, pressed the almost fainting girl
in his arms.

“Come, old Spoil-sport,” said Dagobert:
“you shall be our scout.” Approaching
his wife, who, just risen from the ground, was clasping
her son’s head to her bosom, and covering it
with tears and kisses, he said to her, with a semblance
of calmness and serenity: “Come, my dear
wife, be reasonable! Make us a good fire.
In two or three hours we will bring home the two poor
children, and a fine young lady. Kiss me! that
will bring me luck.”

Frances threw herself on her husband’s neck,
without uttering a word. This mute despair, mingled
with convulsive sobs, was heart-rending. Dagobert
was obliged to tear himself from his wife’s arms,
and striving to conceal his emotion, he said to his
son, in an agitated voice: “Let us go—­she
unmans me. Take care of her, my good Mother Bunch.
Agricola—­come!”

The soldier slipped the pistols into the pocket of
his great coat, and rushed towards the door, followed
by Spoil-sport.

“My son, let me embrace you once more—­alas!
it is perhaps for the last time!” cried the
unfortunate mother, incapable of rising, but stretching
out her arms to Agricola. “Forgive me! it
is all my fault.”

The smith turned back, mingled his tears with those
of his mother—­for he also wept—­and
murmured, in a stifled voice: “Adieu, dear
mother! Be comforted. We shall soon meet
again.”

Then, escaping from the embrace, he joined his father
upon the stairs.

Frances Baudoin heaved a long sigh, and fell almost
lifeless into the needlewoman’s arms.

Dagobert and Agricola left the Rue Brise-Miche in
the height of the storm, and hastened with great strides
towards the Boulevard de l’Hopital, followed
by the dog.

CHAPTER XIII.

Burglary.

Half-past eleven had just struck, when Dagobert and
his son arrived on the Boulevard de l’Hopital.

The wind blew violently, and the rain fell down in
torrents, but notwithstanding the thickness of the
watery clouds, it was tolerably light, thanks to the
late rising of the moon. The tall, dark trees,
and the white walls of the convent garden, were distinguishable
in the midst of the pale glimmer. Afar off, a
street lamp, acted on by the wind, with its red lights
hardly visible through the mist and rain, swung backwards
and forwards over the dirty causeway of the solitary
boulevard.